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      The Dirty Relationship Between Russia and China

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      The leaders of Russia and China are joining forces. Russian President Vladimir Putin traveled to Beijing for the Winter Olympics to show solidarity with his largest trade partner at an event that the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia are boycotting diplomatically.

      The statement that Putin signed with Chinese leader Xi Jinping confirms their overlapping interests, their joint insistence on the right to do whatever they like within their own borders, and their disgust over the destabilizing nature of various US military actions.

      In Ukraine, More Than European Peace Is at Stake

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      There’s much high-flown language in the statement about democracy, economic development and commitment to the Paris climate goals of 2015. But the timing of the statement suggests that it’s really about hard power. Putin didn’t travel all the way to Beijing and Xi didn’t meet with his first foreign leader in two years just to hammer out a general statement of principles. Putin wants China to have his back on Ukraine and is supporting Chinese claims over Taiwan and Hong Kong in return.

      This isn’t an easy quid pro quo, given that the two countries have long had a wary relationship. In the past, Russia eyed China’s global economic ambitions with concern, and a certain type of Russian conspiracy theorist worried about large numbers of Chinese moving into the underpopulated Russian Far East. Before Putin took over, China was uncomfortable with the political volatility of its northern neighbor. After Putin, Beijing was not happy with the Kremlin’s military escapades in its near abroad.

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      But that is changing. “For the first time in any of Russia’s recent aggressions, Putin has won the open support of China’s leader,” Robin Wright writes in The New Yorker. “China did not back Russia’s war in Georgia in 2008, or its invasion of Ukraine in 2014, nor has it recognized Russia’s annexation of Crimea.”

      The geopolitics of the new relationship between China and Russia is certainly important. But let’s take a look at what’s really fueling this new alliance. Quite literally.

      Fossil Fuel Friendship

      Inside the Arctic Circle, just across from the bleak military outpost of Novaya Zemlya, Russia has built the northernmost natural gas facility in the world: Yamal LNG. More than 200 wells have been drilled to tap into the equivalent of 4 billion barrels of oil. Nuclear-powered icebreakers clear the port of Sabetta for liquefied natural gas tankers to transport the fuel to points south. Russia also plans to build a train line to ship what it expects to be 60 million tons of natural gas per year by 2030.

      Russia can thank climate change for making it easier to access the deposits of natural gas. It can also thank China. Beijing owns about 30% of Yamal LNG. The Arctic is quite far away from China’s usual Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects. Yamal is also an increasingly perilous investment because melting permafrost puts all that infrastructure of extraction at risk. But China needs huge amounts of energy to keep its economy growing at the rate the central government deems necessary.

      That’s why so many of the BRI projects involving Russia are centered around fossil fuel. At the top of the list is the first Power of Siberia pipeline, which opened in 2019 to pump natural gas from the Russian Far East into China. A second such pipeline is under consideration, which would connect China to… Yamal LNG.

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      At the moment, the natural gas from the Russian Arctic supplies consumers in Europe. With a second Power of Siberia pipeline, Russia could more easily weather a boycott from European importers. Yamal, by the way, is already under US sanctions, which has made Chinese financial backing even more essential. China is investing a total of $123.87 billion in the three phases of the Power of Siberia project, which is more than any other BRI oil and gas investment and four times what China spends on energy from Saudi Arabia.

      But these are not the only Belt and Road connections between the two countries. Five of the top 10 BRI mining projects are in Russia, including a $1.8 billion coal mining complex. China is also investing in an Arctic free trade zone and upgraded rail and road links between the two countries.

      Let’s be clear: the bear and the dragon don’t see eye to eye on everything. As Gaye Christoffersen writes in The Asan Forum: “China focused on infrastructural projects useful for importing Russian natural resources, while Russia focused on developing industries in resource processing. The two sides failed to reach a consensus. Later, China insisted, as a Near-Arctic state, on equal partnership in developing the Northern Sea Route, while Russia demanded respect for its sovereignty and rejected China’s Arctic claims. They are still in disagreement despite joint efforts.”

      But the basic relationship remains: Russia has energy to sell and China is an eager buyer. In a side deal that coincided with their recent Olympic statement, for instance, China agreed to purchase $117.5 billion worth of oil and gas. “Rosneft, Russia’s largest oil producer, announced a new agreement to supply 100 million tons of crude through Kazakhstan to the Chinese state company China National Petroleum Corporation over the next ten years—while the Russian energy giant Gazprom pledged to ship 10 billion cubic meters of gas per year to China through a new pipeline,” writes Frederick Kempe at the Atlantic Council. Talk about greasing the wheels of cooperation.

      A Future Eastern Alliance?

      Putin hasn’t given up on Europe. He still has friends in Victor Orban’s Hungary and Aleksandar Vucic’s Serbia. Europe remains the biggest market for Russian oil and gas. And both NATO and the European Union continue to attract the interest of countries on Russian borders, which means that the Kremlin has to pay close attention to its western flank.

      But the Ukraine crisis, even if it doesn’t devolve into war, could represent a turning point in contemporary geopolitics.

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      Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping share a great deal in common. They are both nationalists who derive much of their public legitimacy not from an abstract political ideology, but from their appeals to homeland. They have a mutual disgust for the liberalism of human rights and checks on government power. Despite their involvement in various global institutions, they firmly believe in a sovereignist position that puts no constraints on what they do within the borders of their countries.

      But perhaps the most operationally important aspect of their overlapping worldviews is their approach to energy and climate.

      Both China and Russia are nominally committed to addressing climate change. They have pledged to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, though they both resort to some dodgy accounting to offset their actual emissions and meet their Paris commitments. China is more serious in terms of installing renewable energy infrastructure, with solar, wind and other sources responsible for 43% of power generation. Russia’s commitment to renewable energy at this point is negligible.

      But both remain wedded to fossil fuels. It’s a matter of economic necessity for Russia as the world’s largest exporter of natural gas, the second-largest exporter of petroleum and the third-largest exporter of coal. Fossil fuels accounted for over 60% of the country’s exports in 2019; oil and gas alone provide well over a third of the federal budget. All of this is in jeopardy because a good number of Russia’s customers are trying to wean themselves of fossil fuel imports to cut their carbon emissions and to decrease their dependency on the Kremlin.

      But not China. Despite its considerable investments into renewable energy, Beijing is still a huge consumer of fossil fuels. Chinese demand for natural gas has been rising for the last few years and won’t peak until 2035, which is bad news for the world but good news for the Russian gas industry. Oil consumption, which is more than twice that of natural gas and is rising more slowly, will peak in 2030.

      Coal is still China’s largest source of energy. “Since 2011, China has consumed more coal than the rest of the world combined,” according to ChinaPower. “As of 2020, coal made up 56.8 percent of China’s energy use.” In 2020, as Alec MacGillis points out in a New Yorker piece, China built three times more power-generating infrastructure from coal than the rest of the world combined, and it continues to mine staggering amounts of the stuff. Despite all the domestic production, however, China still relies on imports. Because of trade tensions with Australia — the world’s second-largest exporter of coal after Indonesia — China has increasingly turned to Russia to meet demand.

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      In other words, Russia and China are positioning themselves to use as much fossil fuel and emit as much carbon as they can in the next two decades to strengthen their economies and their hegemonic power in their adjacent spheres—and before international institutions acquire the resolve and the power to hold countries to their carbon reduction promises.

      Yes, other countries are slow to abandon fossil fuels. The United States, for instance, relies increasingly on natural gas for electricity generation to compensate for a marked reduction in the use of coal. Japan remains heavily dependent on oil, natural gas and coal. So, Russia and China are not unique in their attachment to these energy sources.

      But if the world’s largest consumer of fossil fuels teams up with one of the world’s largest producers, it doesn’t just discomfit NATO generals and the trans-Atlantic establishment. It should worry anyone who believes that we still have a chance to prevent runaway climate change by 2050.

      *[This article was originally published by FPIF.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      The Taliban Uses Violence Against Women as a Bargaining Chip

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      After the collapse of the Afghan government last August, the only significant challenge to the Taliban’s primitive totalitarianism was mounted by women in big cities — the capital Kabul, Mazar-e Sharif in the north, and Herat in the west, among others. The Taliban’s approach to women’s rights brought fears of violence that engulfed the country in the 1990s when the Talibs first won power. But Afghan society has undergone considerable changes since then, and many Afghan women refuse to accept the militants’ restricted approach to their right to work and education.

      FO° Live: Women Under the Taliban

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      In response, the Taliban have deployed various oppressive measures. In September, they replaced the Women’s Affairs Ministry with morality police, which enforces the armed group’s strict religious doctrine on the country. At the same time, while trying to confine women to their homes by forbidding them to work or study, the Taliban are using the threat of violence against women as a bargaining chip against the Western powers.

      Violent Tactics

      In September last year, the Taliban attacked the media to prevent them from covering the women’s protests in Kabul. Two Etilaatroz journalists were tortured. Etilaatroz is one of the leading Afghan newspapers and a critical voice mainly focused on investigative journalism. An attack on the newspaper was a clear signal for everyone covering the protests against the Taliban.

      Since the armed group took control of the country, at least 318 media outlets closed in 33 of 34 provinces and, according to the International Federation of Journalists, 72% of those who lost their jobs are women.

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      But the Taliban quickly changed their tactics to tackle women’s protests through more intimidating methods, including nighttime house searches to locate those who dared raise their voice. Tamana Zaryabi Paryani, a member of the movement demanding rights to work and education, is just one of the women taken from their homes in Kabul in the middle of the night; her whereabouts remain unknown. Some families report being contacted by detainees from Taliban prisons in undisclosed locations.

      The Taliban deny capturing, detaining or killing women and other opponents. This tactic aims to mislead public opinion, the media and policymakers in Western countries. The situation may be even more critical in the provinces, beyond the eyes of the media. In September last year, the Taliban killed a former police officer with the ousted Afghan government in front of her family in Gor province; she was pregnant at the time of her murder.

      There is no way to assess the true number of disappeared women across the country. Some of them are known by the media, such Mursal Ayar, Parwana Ibrahimkhel, Tamana Paryani, Zahra Mohammadi and Alia Azizi. Most of them belong to the protest movement against the Taliban’s policies. Azizi worked as a senior female prison official in Herat and went missing when the Taliban took control of the city. Amnesty International urged the Taliban to investigate the case and release her “immediately and unconditionally” if she is in their custody.

      Last week, the UN repeated its call and asked the Taliban to release the disappeared women activists and their relatives. The German Embassy, currently operating from Qatar, has called for an investigation into the missing women. It is entirely possible that the Taliban will eventually release some of the captives, claiming that they were rescued from the clutches of the kidnappers, in order to portray themselves as a responsible government.

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      Gang rape is another tactic that the Taliban deploy against women in detention. The Independent reports that last September, bodies of eight detainees arrested during a protest in Mazar-e Sharif were discovered. According to reports, the girls were repeatedly gang-raped and tortured by the Taliban. Sexual assault is a many-sided weapon against women in a society based on strict honor codes. Some of those who survived the rapes were killed by their families.

      In January, The Times reported that the staff in the government-run Mazar-e Sharif Regional Hospital claim that they receive around 15 bodies from Taliban fighters each month — mostly women with gunshot wounds to the head or chest.

      Bargaining Chip

      Violence has been the Taliban’s primary tool both in war and during negotiations with Western powers. Over the course of two decades of conflict, the Taliban used violence as a means to win recognition as a political force. During their talks with the US and the Afghan government, the Taliban escalated violence to enhance their position at the negotiating table. Now, they are pursuing the same strategy by trading repression for recognition.

      Since the Taliban took control of the country, women’s rights are a constant subject of ongoing diplomatic discussions that have so far brought no result. The international community has failed to press the Taliban to form an inclusive government and respect women’s rights.

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      But the armed group wants the international community to recognize their government. In January, a Taliban delegation was invited to Oslo to talk with Western powers and representatives of Afghan women for the first time. At the meeting, Hoda Khamosh, a civil society activist, asked the Taliban delegation: “why are the Taliban imprisoning us in Kabul and now sitting here at the negotiating table with us in Oslo? What is the international community doing in the face of all this torture and repression?”

      Since then, nothing has changed. The reality is that the Taliban used the talks in Oslo as an opportunity to make an international appearance to advertise their government. They are deploying precepts like women’s rights to force more international engagement. While Norway was criticized for inviting the Taliban and offering them exposure, Switzerland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that it invited the Taliban to talk about “the protection of humanitarian actors and respect for human rights.”

      The Taliban is an ideological, zealot religious movement, and years of experience suggest that they are unlikely to revise their position on women’s rights and other fundamental issues, including human rights and political pluralism. Talking about women’s rights in Western capitals is just an opportunity for them to normalize their regime and travel abroad. Human rights violations, particularly violence against women, not only serve the Taliban’s ideological purposes but have turned into a convenient bargaining chip against the international community.

      It is critical that Western powers support fundamental human rights in the country without providing the Taliban with opportunities for blackmail, implementig realistic measures to press the group to release activists and to respect women’s rights. First, it is important to maintain or escalate the current sanctions regime against the Taliban leadership. Second, making sure that there is no rush to recognize the Taliban regime mong foreign governments is another key leverage point.

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      Third, there is a need to appoint a special rapporteur to monitor the human rights situation and document violations to hold the Taliban accountable. Fourth, it is important to extend and support the mandate of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan to help monitor the human rights situation in the country.

      Finally, the international community can continue its humanitarian support through UN agencies and other organizations without recognizing the Taliban. Recognition of the group will not only increase human rights abuses but will send the wrong signal to other extremists in the region. All these measures will reduce the Taliban’s ability to use violence as a bargaining chip against the international community.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      On the Road in a Divided and Delusional America

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      “Democracy” is the currency of hypocrisy in today’s America. No politician or pundit seems able to get enough of it. Most of the babble is about “our precious democracy” and the threats to its institutional survival. But amid all the talk, there is so little critical analysis of that “precious democracy” and hardly a moment to reflect on what the word “democracy” itself actually means.

      Further, after decades of pushing some stylized version of democracy on the rest of the world, often at the point of a gun or spurred on by lucrative defense contracts and arms sales, it has finally occurred to some in America that we are far short of a common understanding of the fundamental elements of democratic governance. Often, those on whom we loudly thrust the largesse of democracy are little more than ruling oligarchs in a rigged system. If that sounds familiar, it should.

      Is the Decline of Democracy Inevitable?

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      Democracy is generally defined as “government by the people, especially rule of the majority.” In fuller terms, it has been defined as “a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections.”

      Finding an institutional fit for this definition of democracy is at best elusive. Unfortunately, almost all of the loose talk of a precious “democracy” in peril is utterly devoid of context and content.

      Democracy in America

      In the United States, rule of the majority is a delusional joke starkly playing itself out in the procedural charade that is the Senate. The entire Republican Party is committed to drive free elections and truly representational government even further into the fictional realm that it has historically occupied. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has legalized corporate and special interest influence peddling that openly overwhelms and corrupts any pretense at truly representational government and makes a mockery of the legislative process.

      Even today, as America engages in a frenzied response to Russian provocation on the Ukrainian border, we loudly and uncritically assert that there is an actual Ukrainian “democracy” that must be defended. This is only America’s latest chapter in the arrogant advocacy for “democracy” around the world at the point of a gun. What remains uncritically defined at home is doomed to failure when uncritically asserted to justify intervention, arms sales and hostile action elsewhere.

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      On American soil, democracy has an equally abused cousin in public discourse: “freedom.” It is hard to overestimate the impact of whatever “freedom” means individually and collectively on the perception of “democracy.” One need look no further than the role that perceptions of “freedom” play in the carnage resulting from gun violence in a country in which foundational rule of law should result in a constructive institutional response to that carnage. Or, reflect for a moment on all of the Christian prayers floating about in the public forum in a country whose institutions are supposedly committed to “freedom” of religion that should include “freedom” from religion.

      The national response to gun violence is a wonderful gateway issue to examine the health of America’s “democratic” institutions. What happens when your idea of your “freedom” steps all over my idea of my “freedom”? Imagine an America in which everybody agreed that gun carnage was an unacceptable intrusion on a collective freedom. Imagine an America in which that precious handgun gave way to that precious life. Imagine an America in which its “democratic” institutions responded to the 84% of American voters who support universal gun purchase background checks by actually enacting legislation to meet that overwhelming majority goal.

      It has been noted above that “democracy” at the point of a gun takes the shine off of the pristine concept. Democratic institutions that cannot respond to majority sentiment with something more than the universal thoughts and prayers that litter our public discourse in response to gun carnage are not, in fact, democratic institutions. Believing otherwise is yet another round of self-delusion on America’s magical mystery tour. In America, Americans die. Elsewhere, the devastation is no less traumatic for those caught in the grip of America’s addiction to violence without meaningful consent of the governed.

      Money and Politics

      Yet another confounding feature of America’s “democracy” is the incredible amounts of cash needed to even begin to compete for political office. So, on a stage already tilted by voter suppression measures, fundraising becomes the essential component of gaining political power for both the anxious candidate and those seeking to peddle their own influence.

      In today’s politically and socially divided America, creating political theater is the surest way to attract the cash needed for electoral success. Think about that for a moment. Since the press and social media networks cannot seem to get enough of the lying, cheating, stealing and fraud at the heart of one outrageous public claim after another, infamy can be turned into instant cash. Tell the public that school libraries are awash in critical race theory, send out a message telling the faithful that you are their champion in the fight for the souls of their children and, most importantly, to be their champion you will need their financial support. The money rolls in and the beat goes on.

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      This is not how any constitutional democracy was designed to work. Democratic institutions cannot survive in a sea of public ignorance and indifference. Truly democratic institutions cannot be bought and sold like a used car. So, come one, come all, this US senator is for sale. Listen to his chatter, believe his message, fill his coffers and watch him perform. Get 41 of these elected clunkers in the 100-member Senate at the same time, and gun control is an illusion, environmental protection is eroded and social justice is denied. All filibustered to legislative death by an institutional minority.

      It is the hypocrisy of it all that should be apparent to anyone actually paying attention. So, the next time that you see the stars and stripes flying or hear the glorious strains of “God Bless America,” stop for just a moment and think about the meaning of democracy, how precious it could be and how utterly absent it is from America’s shores. The nation is not now, nor has it ever been, a democracy. And loudly declaring it as such should ring hollow every time, because the evidence overwhelmingly suggests otherwise.

      Then, stop for just another moment and think about how truly democratic institutions might be able to provide the essential platform for shaping a more perfect union. The success of the struggle to make that happen should be the most significant measure of a great nation.

      *[This article was co-published on the author’s blog, Hard Left Turn.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      The Art of Prince Andrew’s Lawyers

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      With everything that has been going on as the world seeks to weigh the chances of a nuclear war and a realignment of nations across the globe, fans of the media may have failed to tune into the real news that broke in recent weeks. Forget Ukraine, there is another drama whose suspense is building. It obviously concerns the fate of the battered Prince Andrew because of his role in the Jeffrey Epstein/Ghislaine Maxwell saga that has already produced an officially (and conveniently) declared “suicide” (Epstein’s) and a celebrity criminal trial (Maxwell’s). 

      Since a US judge has now agreed to bring Virginia Giuffre’s civil lawsuit to trial, it means that for the first time, a prince of England, a member of the royal family, will be officially put on the hot seat in an American courtroom. The rebelling colonists couldn’t get King George III to answer for his crimes, but they now appear to have a son of Elizabeth II in their grasp.

      Boris Johnson’s Convenient Bravado

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      For weeks, the media have been running updates specifically on speculation about the legal strategy Andrew’s attorneys are likely to adopt. Though for the moment it remains mere speculation, it does have the power for attentive observers to provoke a few comic effects. The latest hypothesis has the lawyers seeking to turn the tables on Giuffre by accusing her of sex trafficking. They aren’t claiming Andrew is innocent, but they want her to appear guilty. Business Insider considers that ploy “risky” because the tactic consists of getting a witness — another of Epstein’s victims — to make that claim about Giuffre. It risks backfiring because the witness could actually contradict Andrew’s adamant claim that he never had sex with Giuffre.

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      Actually, the legal team appears already to have prepared a strategy for that eventuality. On January 26, NPR reported that Andrew’s lawyers addressed a message to the court saying, “that if any sexual activity did occur between the prince and Virginia Giuffre, it was consensual.” This may sound odd because the accused’s lawyers should know if he did or didn’t, but the law is never about knowledge, only the impression a good attorney can make on a judge or a jury.

      NPR continues its description of the lawyers’ position: “The court filing made clear that Andrew wasn’t admitting sexual contact with Giuffre. But it said if the case wasn’t dismissed, the defense wants a trial in which it would argue that her abuse claims ‘are barred by the doctrine of consent.’”

      Today’s Weekly Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Consent:

      Agreement on something perceived as illicit between two or more people, including, in some extreme cases, a member of the British royal family and a 17-year-old American girl turned into a sex slave by the royal’s best American friend

      Contextual Note

      Since lawyers live in a world of hypotheticals, evoking the idea that “if” a judge and jury were to decide sexual contact between the two was real, it should enable the legal team to make a claim they expect the court to understand as: She was asking for it. In civil cases, all lawyers know that attack is the best defense.

      Thus, Andrew’s legal team is now being paid, not to prove the prince’s innocence, but to establish the guilt of the victim. They are seeking to create the impression that the Virginia Roberts of two decades ago was already a wolf in sheep’s clothing when she consented to consorting with a prince. And, of course, continues to be one as she seeks to profit from the civil trial today.

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      Most commentators doubt that Andrew has a case. This has permitted the media to revel in the humiliation of a man who has always been perceived as supercilious and deserving of no one’s attention apart from being the queen’s “favourite son.” That is why this has been nothing but bad news for Buckingham Palace. 

      And it looks to get worse. So stay tuned.

      Historical Note

      Legal experts tell us that what the prince’s lawyers refer to as the “doctrine of consent” is officially described as the “doctrine of informed consent.” More pertinently, the consent referred to focuses entirely on cases in the realm of medical treatment. It is all about a patient’s agreement to a medical procedure that may be risky. It defines the physician’s duty to inform the patient of all the risks associated with a recommended procedure. If consent is obtained, the physician will be clear of responsibility should any of the risks be realized.

      It may seem odd that Prince Andrew’s lawyers are appealing to a doctrine established specifically for medical practice. But while many will not think of lawyers themselves as appealing, whenever they lose a case, you can be sure that they will be appealing it. But that isn’t the only kind of appealing they do. When preparing a case, they will appeal to any random principle or odd fact that appears to serve their purpose. This should surprise no one because, just like politicians who focus on winning elections rather than governing, lawyers focus on winning cases for their clients rather than on justice.

      The sad truth, however, for those who believe that justice is a fine thing to have as a feature of an advanced civilization is that the lawyers are not only right to follow that logic; the best of their lot are also very skillful in making it work. Which is why what we call the justice system will always be more “just” for those who can afford to pay for the most skillful lawyers.

      The final irony of this story lies in the fact that, in their diligence, the lawyers have borrowed the idea behind the doctrine of consent, not from the world of sexual predation, but from the realm of therapy and medical practice. They need to be careful at this point. Even Andrew and his lawyers should know that if you insert a space in the word “therapist,” it points to the image Prince Andrew has in some people’s minds: “the rapist.” The mountains of testimony from Jeffrey Epstein’s countless victims reveal that, though they were undoubtedly consenting in some sense to the masterful manipulation of the deceased billionaire and friend to the famous and wealthy (as well as possibly a spy), all of them have been to some degree traumatized for life by the experience.

      Embed from Getty Images

      As Bill Gates explained when questioned about the problem of his own (he claims ill-informed) consent to whatever he was up to with Epstein, for him there could be no serious regrets. The problem no longer exists because, well, “he’s dead” (referring to his pal, Jeffrey). Prince Andrew is still alive, though this whole business has deprived him of all his royal privileges, making him something of a dead branch on the royal family tree. Virginia Giuffre is also still alive, though undoubtedly disturbed by her experience as a tool in the hands of Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and Prince Andrew.

      So, unless a nuclear war intervenes in the coming weeks between the US and Russia making everything else redundant (including the collapse of Meta’s stock), the interesting news will turn around the legal fate in the US of two prominent Brits. The first is a socialite (and possibly also a spy) as well as a high-profile heiress, Ghislaine Maxwell. She is expected to have a retrial sometime in the future. The second is none other than the queen’s favorite son.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Fair Observer Devil’s Dictionary.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      A Personal Boycott of the Beijing Olympic Games

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      The International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the world’s largest corporations are allowing the government of China to use the Winter Olympic Games to promote and advance its notion of the superiority of one-party, one-man authoritarian rule, much as was done at the 1936 Nazi-hosted Olympic Games in Berlin.

      I’m boycotting these games in Beijing. Doing so does not come easy for me. As a life-long sports enthusiast, I have always looked forward to the Olympics. Watching the world’s preeminent athletes compete on the world stage and rooting for my own national team and others who seem to defy the oddsmakers never failed to excite me. As a kid, I even once dreamed of becoming an Olympic competitor myself. (Alas, my 1.7-meter frame was simply not up to the task of throwing the shot put or discus on the world, or any other, stage!)

      Why Democratic Nations Must Boycott the Beijing Winter Olympics

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      Here in the United States, NBC television is broadcasting the Winter Olympics, devoting at least six hours per day of coverage. Traditionally, its broadcasts dominate the ratings as Americans gather in front of their TV sets and computer and phone screens to watch and cheer on US athletes. I will be cheering on our athletes, too. But I won’t be watching.

      The IOC’s Charter

      I will not watch these games because they betray the very values enshrined in the IOC’s charter and its definition of “Olympism.” That is, it “seeks to create a way of life based on the joy of effort, the educational value of good example, social responsibility and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.” It further states its goal “to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of humankind, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.”

      Based on its charter, the IOC should have flatly denied China’s petition to host the 2022 Winter Games. How could the IOC have been so blind to its values in awarding the games to Beijing? How was it possible to allow China to host the Olympic Games when the government of the People’s Republic of China has systematically persecuted, incarcerated, shackled and tortured up to 2 million Uyghurs, sterilized their women and sought to snuff out their Muslim faith? Uyghurs, a Muslim-majority, Turkic-speaking people, have inhabited China’s western Xinjiang province for at least 1,000 years.

      Embed from Getty Images

      But the suffering of the Uyghurs at the hands of an overbearing, intolerant Beijing isn’t a one-off. The Chinese have been doing largely the same thing for decades to the people of Tibet, effectively carrying out a campaign of cultural genocide.

      Several years ago, the world again witnessed China’s notion of “respect for universal fundamental ethical principles” and “promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.” Beijing-directed henchmen attacked the people and institutions of Hong Kong, decimating the last vestiges of democracy in the enclave. The government has been arresting and trying any and all opponents, dissidents, journalists and human rights advocates unwilling to buckle under Beijing’s iron-fisted, authoritarian order.

      More recently, the world has observed Beijing turn its aggression to the island of Taiwan, the lone democratic outpost today within China’s one-party, one-man “Asian Reich.” Taiwan presents an unquestionably complex and difficult issue. But the inhabitants of Taiwan have embraced democracy and the freedoms that come with it. Resolving Beijing’s differences with the island and its people with menacing and aggressive behavior — dozens of mass warplane incursions, repeated threats and belligerent bombast — cannot possibly lead to a solution. Rather, a threatened invasion of the island would not only likely crush its democracy, but also inject enormous instability in Asia and torpedo the global economy in a manner unseen since World War II.

      To the IOC, however, none of this mattered. Its president, Thomas Bach, and even UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres traveled to Beijing for the opening ceremony of the games with nary a word about China’s abysmal human rights policies in Xinjiang, Hong Kong or Tibet. Instead, the IOC wants to see another “successful” games, which typically means an Olympics that makes money. Lots of it.

      The IOC, NBC and Sponsors

      Enter the American media giant, NBC. For exclusive broadcast rights to the Olympics through 2023, the network has paid the IOC $7.75 billion. That comes out to roughly $1.8 billion for the Beijing Games alone, or about 20% of the cost of the games. Tragically, revenues trump rights for China and for the IOC.

      One would think that with that kind of leverage, NBC and the IOC’s numerous sponsors and advertisers — globally recognized names like Allianz, Toyota, Bridgestone, Panasonic, Coca-Cola, Airbnb, Intel, Proctor & Gamble, Visa, Samsung and others — would have stood up to the IOC, explaining the harm to their brands of awarding the games to Beijing.

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      And what about NBC itself? The Chinese government has imposed restrictions on journalists covering the games. The sort of 360-type coverage that is traditionally featured in its coverage of the Olympics — not just the events themselves but also the athletes, their lives and backgrounds, the host country and its people — is being severely restricted. One Dutch journalist has already experienced China’s intolerance, having been dragged away while reporting live on camera.

      Are the dollar earnings so great that NBC will sacrifice its journalistic ethics and responsibilities, all while other members of the profession suffer under Beijing’s crackdown on truth and free journalism?

      China is not Nazi Germany. But Germany in 1936 was not yet the depraved hell of human suffering — the tens of millions of destroyed lives of Jews, Slavs, Roma and so many others — that it would become under Nazi rule. But we might have seen it, given the way the Nazis and Adolf Hitler engaged in over-the-top self-promotion and outward, sensational displays of Aryan superiority and Nazi rule.

      The IOC, NBC and their many sponsors and advertisers have given China center stage to arrogantly parade and shamelessly hawk its own brand of unyielding, intolerant authoritarian rule. In China, the power of the state, its ruling Communist Party and great leader, XI Jinping, vitiate Olympism’s concepts of “social responsibility and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles” and “basic human dignity.”

      If they won’t recognize this contemptible undertaking for what it is, I will. I will miss the world’s best athletes and the great ritual of the world coming together for 17 days to celebrate individual struggle and achievement. I won’t be watching these Winter Olympic Games.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Iraq Still Feels the Consequences of US Assassinations

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      The assassination of Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) elite Quds Force, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, an Iraqi militia commander, head of Kataib Hezbollah and de facto leader of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), by a US drone strike outside Baghdad International Airport in January 2020 continues to reverberate across Iraq.

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      The killings, ordered by then US President Donald Trump, have served to exacerbate the severe security challenges the government of Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi already faces. The PMF, without al-Muhandis’ leadership, is becoming increasingly splintered, threatening even more insecurity for ordinary Iraqis who are trying to recover from nearly two decades of war and terrorism.

      Growing Security Challenges

      Security is a prerequisite for the prosperity, welfare and economic development of any society. However, as long as Iran continues its extensive influence over Iraq and uses Iraqi territory as a venue to play out its conflict with the United States, security cannot be achieved.

      After the assassinations of Soleimani and al-Muhandis, the PMF appeared to be even more aggressively pursuing Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s strategic goal, namely the withdrawal of all US troops from Iraq. The US Embassy, the Baghdad Green Zone and US military bases have been repeatedly targeted by PMF militias. The US responded in kind and bombed PMF positions in various parts of the country, further escalating an already fragile security situation.

      Meanwhile, al-Kadhimi, viewed by his critics as catering to Washington, blamed the US for violating Iraqi sovereignty by launching unilateral operations inside the country. At the same time, he faced strenuous demands from the Americans for his government to do more to stop PMF attacks on US targets.

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      The withdrawal of foreign military forces had been approved by the Iraqi parliament just two days after the high-profile assassinations. Following the US-Iraqi strategic dialogue that launched in June 2020, the US evacuated some of its bases that have been in place since 2003, handing them over to the Iraqi army. But a final withdrawal agreed to be completed by the end of last year has stalled, and the remaining 2,500 US troops have stayed on, no longer in a combat role but rather to “advise, assist and enable” the Iraqi military.

      This quasi-exit was met with a stern reaction from the PMF, who threatened to treat the US forces as aggressors if they did not withdraw completely from Iraq. “Targeting the US occupation in Iraq is a great honor, and we support the factions that target it,” was how a spokesperson for one of the PMF militias put it. Such threats underline the risk of further confrontations between the militias and the US and the potential for more insecurity for ordinary Iraqis.

      The targeting of Baghdad’s airport on January 28, with at least six rockets landing on the runway and areas close to the non-military side, causing damage to parked passenger planes, underlines just how fragile the security situation remains.

      The PM and the PMF

      The conflicts over differences between the PMF and the government are another reason for growing insecurity in the post-assassination period. The PMF has a competitive relationship with the prime minister’s government, and this competition has only intensified over the past two years. PMF groups consider al-Kadhimi to be pro-US, seeking to reduce the influence of Shia militant groups in Iraq.

      Initially, in March 2020, major Shia factions rejected his nomination, accusing him of being inordinately close to the US. The Fatah Coalition, composed of significant Shia groups close to Iran, later accepted his candidacy. Still, tensions remain as al-Kadhimi strives to strike a balance between Iran on the one hand and the US and its allies on the other.

      The prime minister believes that the PMF should exit the political stage. He also believes that the PMF should be freed from party affiliation and be fully controlled by the government. This would mean that their budget would come from the federal government and not from private sources or other states. In this regard, al-Kadhimi is seeking to strengthen government control over border crossings to fight corruption and smuggling.

      Embed from Getty Images

      The crossings are used by militias, including those reportedly active at Diyala’s border crossing into Iran. If the government effectively controls these vital channels, financial inflows from smuggling, which strengthens the militias, will decrease in the long term while federal coffers will directly benefit.

      The dispute between the PMF and the prime minister escalated in May of last year when police arrested Qasem Mosleh, the PMF commander in Anbar province, over the assassination of a prominent Iraqi activist. In response, the PMF stormed and took control of the Green Zone. Al-Kadhimi, not wanting to escalate the conflict, found no evidence against Mosleh and released him after 14 days.

      In November 2021, al-Kadhimi himself was targeted in an assassination attempt following clashes between various Iraqi parties during protests against the results of the parliamentary elections. Despite its failure, an armed drone attack on the prime minister’s Baghdad residence presented a disturbing development for contemporary Iraq and was attributed to a PMF militia loyal to Iran.

      Internal Struggles

      The assassination of al-Muhandis had a huge impact on the PMF. He was a charismatic figure able to mediate more effectively than anyone else between various Iraqi groups, from Shia clerics in Najaf to Iraqi government politicians and Iranian officials. After his death, the militia groups in the PMF face internal division.

      The PMF’s political leadership, including its chairman, Falih Al-Fayyadh, has tried to present itself as committed to the law and accepting the authority of the prime minister. In contrast, two powerful PMF factions, Kataib Hezbollah and Asaib Ahl al-Haq, have taken a hardline stance, emphasizing armed resistance against US forces. Tehran’s efforts to mediate between the leaders of the two factions and the Iraqi government have yielded few results.

      Meanwhile, internal disagreements over the degree of Iranian control caused four PMF brigades to split off and form a new structure called Hashd al-Atabat, or Shrine Units. Their avowed intention is to repudiate Iranian influence while supporting the Iraqi state and the rule of law.

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      Another divide in the PMF has opened up between groups such as Kataib Hezbollah on the one hand, and Badr, Asaib Ahl al-Haq and Saraya al-Salam on the other, due to poor relationship management by Kataib Hezbollah in the PMF Commission after Muhandis’ death. While it is unsurprising that a number of critical PMF functions like internal affairs and intelligence are controlled by Kataib Hezbollah given that Muhandis founded the group before assuming the PMF’s leadership, he managed to exercise control in a manner that kept other factions onboard.

      But Kataib Hezbollah’s imposition, in February 2020, of another one of its commanders, Abu Fadak al Mohammadawi, to succeed al-Muhandis on the PMF Commission alienated key groups such as Badr and Asaib. Clearly, a severely factionalized and heavily armed PMF continues to pose a significant security threat in the country.

      Announcing the assassinations on January 3, 2020, Donald Trump said of Soleimani that “we take comfort knowing his reign of terror is over.” Two years on from the killing of the IRGC general and the PMF boss, ordinary Iraqis beset by violence and insecurity take no such comfort.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

      *[This article was originally published by Arab Digest, a partner of Fair Observer.] More

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      The Evolution of National Security in the UAE

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      The United Arab Emirates, a small and ambitious country in the Persian Gulf, faces a variety of security threats. Its geographic location puts it at the center of instability, sectarianism and regional rivalries in the Middle East, which has led the country to pay particular attention to its security. 

      In recent years, the Arab countries of the Persian Gulf, especially the UAE, have recognized that trusting foreign governments, such as the United States, cannot offer them the best possible protection. The US has had a presence in the Persian Gulf since the 1990s and the Gulf Arab countries have relied on it to provide security. However, events in recent years have shown that the Gulf Arab states cannot rely solely on Washington.

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      Such developments include the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan amid the US withdrawal; the US pivot to Asia; the US retraction of most advanced missile defense systems and Patriot batteries from Saudi Arabia; and the lack of a US military response to threats, missile and drone attacks on Saudi oil bases by the Houthis in Yemen.

      This has encouraged the Arab countries in the Persian Gulf to pursue security autonomy. The UAE, in particular, has sought to transform its strategy from dependence on the US and Saudi Arabia to a combination of self-reliance and multilateral cooperation.

      Self-Reliance Security Strategy

      Although the UAE is an important ally of America in the Persian Gulf, over recent years, the US has sought to push the Emiratis toward security self-reliance. Sociopolitical events in the Middle East over the last decade following the Arab Spring of 2010-11 have made it clear to the UAE that the primary goal of ensuring national security, in addition to benefiting from international cooperation, should be the use of national facilities and resources.

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      Hosni Mubarak’s ouster from Egypt during the Arab Spring protests and the reluctance of the US to defend him as an ally — which led to the rise of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood — further demonstrated to Abu Dhabi that it should not exclusively depend on the US for security assistance. Thus, the UAE began to develop a professional army.

      The UAE‘s self-reliance strategy is divided into different branches, but most of all, its military security efforts have been given the highest priority. The UAE‘s determination to create an independent and professional military is evident from its years of investment in the defense industry.

      Indeed, security is a top priority for the United Arab Emirates, and defense spending continues to make up a large portion of the national budget. The UAE’s defense spending typically accounts for 11.1% to 14% of the total budget. In 2019, the UAE’s defense spending was $16.4 billion. This was 18% more than the 2018 budget of $13.9 billion.

      The UAE has invested heavily in the military sector and defense industry in recent years. In November 2019, the UAE formed the EDGE Group from a merger of 25 companies. The company has 12,000 employees and $5 billion in total revenue. It is also among the top 25 advocacy groups in the world, ahead of firms such as Booz Allen Hamilton in the US and Rolls-Royce in the UK.

      EDGE is structured around five clusters: platforms and systems, missiles and weapons, cyber defense, electronic warfare and intelligence, and mission support. It comprises several major UAE companies in the defense industry, such as ADSB (shipbuilding), Al Jasoor, NIMR (vehicles), SIGN4L (electronic warfare services) and ADASI (autonomous systems). The main goal of EDGE is to develop weapons to fight “hybrid warfare” and to bolster the UAE’s defense against unconventional threats, focusing on electronic attacks and drones.

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      The UAE has also come up with detailed plans to improve the quality of its military personnel, spending large sums of money each year on training its military recruits in American colleges and war academies. It also founded the National Defense College; most of its students are citizens of the UAE, because of its independence in military training. In addition, in 2014, the UAE introduced general conscription for men between the ages of 18 and 30 to increase numbers and strengthen national identity in its military. As a result, it gathered about 50,000 people in the first three years.

      Contrary to traditional practice, the UAE’s growing military power has made it eager to use force and hard power to protect its interests. The UAE stands ready to use military force anywhere in the region to contain Iran’s growing influence and weaken Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood. Participating in the Yemeni War was a test of this strategy.

      The UAE‘s military presence in Yemen began in March 2015. It sent a brigade of 3,000 troops to Yemen in August 2015, along with Saudi Arabia and a coalition of Arab countries. Over the past five years, the UAE has pursued an ambitious strategic agenda in the Red Sea, building military installations and securing control of the southern coasts of Yemen along the Arabian Sea in the Bab al-Mandab Strait and Socotra Island. Despite reducing its military footprints in Yemen in 2019, the UAE has consolidated itself in the southern regions. It has continued to finance and impart training to thousands of Yemeni fighters drafted from various groups like the Security Belt Forces, the Shabwani and Hadrami Elite Forces, Abu al-Abbas Brigade and the West Coast Forces.

      The UAE‘s goal in adopting a self-reliance strategy is to increase strategic depth in the Middle East and the Horn of Africa. Thus, along with direct military presence or arms support for groups engaged in proxy wars, it affects the internal affairs of various countries in the region, such as Yemen, Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, Egypt and Libya. With its influence, the UAE can turn the tide in its favor in certain areas.

      Multilateralism Security Strategy

      The United Arab Emirates faces a variety of security challenges in the Middle East, and addressing them requires cooperation with other countries. Currently, the most significant security threats in the UAE are: countering Iranian threats and power in the Middle East, especially in Arab countries under Iranian influence, such as Yemen, Syria and Lebanon; eliminating threats from terrorist groups and political Islam in the region, the most important of which — according to the UAE — is the Muslim Brotherhood; and economic threats and efforts to prepare for the post-oil world.

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      In its multilateral strategy, the UAE seeks to counter these threats with the help of other countries in the region or beyond. It has used soft power through investments or providing humanitarian aid, suggesting that economic cooperation is more important than political competition and intervention. In this regard, the UAE has cooperated with Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Britain and France, as well as normalized relations with Israel.

      On August 13, 2020, the UAE became the first Gulf state to normalize relations with Israel. The UAE‘s goal in normalizing relations with Israel is to counter threats from Iran and the region. The Abraham Accords have not only a security aspect, but also an economic one. Following the signing of the accords, on October 20, 2020, the US, Israel and the UAE announced the establishment of the Abraham Fund, a joint fund of $3 billion “in private sector-led investment and development initiatives,” aimed at “promoting economic cooperation and prosperity.” In addition, it outlined a banking and finance memorandum between the largest banks in Israel and Dubai, and a joint bid between Dubai’s DP World port operator and an Israeli shipping firm for the management of Israel’s Haifa port.

      Through the Abraham Accords, the United Arab Emirates seeks to invest and transfer Israeli technologies to the UAE through mutual agreements. The UAE has discovered that Israel is one of the bridges to the US economy and high technology. If the UAE intends to have an oil-free economy in the future, Israel may be the best option to achieve this by pursuing a strategy of multilateralization.

      UAE relations with Turkey also have a multilateral dimension to reaching common security goals. The two countries had good relations until the Arab Spring protests jeopardized ties between them. Abu Dhabi and Ankara began to defuse tensions after a phone call in August 2021 between UAE Crown Prince Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The nations mainly have differences around issues in Libya, Syria and Egypt. The UAE is trying to resolve its disputes with Turkey by investing in the country.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Turkey is the largest backer of the Muslim Brotherhood in the region. The Turks claim the UAE participated in the failed coup of July 2016 against the Turkish government. Nonetheless, the UAE wants to end frictions with Turkey and has attracted Ankara by investing and increasing commercial ties. The Turkish lira has depreciated in recent years and Erdogan’s popularity has plummeted due to mismanagement in Turkey. Erdogan will not miss this economic opportunity with the UAE and welcomes Emirati investments. In this way, the UAE will likely easily resolve its differences with Turkey.

      The current tendency to use force is contrary to traditional Abu Dhabi policy, yet increasing the strategic depth of the UAE is one of Abu Dhabi‘s most achievable goals in its strategy of self-reliance. This plan is the exact opposite of multilateralism. Unlike the use of force and hard power, Abu Dhabi seeks to achieve its objectives by using soft power, investment and humanitarian aid. In this situation, the tactical exploitation of economic cooperation takes precedence over political competition and military intervention in the region.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      What Would Helsinki 2.0 Look Like Today?

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      The European security order has broken down. You might think that’s an overstatement. NATO is alive and well. The Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) in Europe is still functioning at a high level.

      Of course, there’s the possibility of a major war breaking out between Russia and Ukraine. But would Russian President Vladimir Putin really take such an enormous risk? Moreover, periodic conflicts in that part of the world — in Ukraine since 2014, in Georgia in 2008, in Transnistria between 1990 and 1992 — have not escalated into Europe-wide wars. Even the horrific bloodletting of Yugoslavia in the 1990s was largely contained within the borders of that benighted former country, and many of the Yugoslav successor states have joined both the European Union and NATO.

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      So, you might argue, the European security order is in fine shape, and it’s only Putin who’s the problem. The United States and Europe will show their resolve in the face of the Russian troops that have massed at the border with Ukraine, Putin will accept some face-saving diplomatic compromise and the status quo will be restored.

      Even if that were to happen and war is averted this time, Europe is still in a fundamental state of insecurity. The Ukraine conflict is a symptom of this much deeper problem.

      The current European security order is an overlay of three different institutional arrangements. NATO is the surprisingly healthy dinosaur of the Cold War era with 30 members, a budget of $3 billion and collective military spending of over a trillion dollars.

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      Russia has pulled together a post-Cold War military alliance of former Soviet states, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), that is anemic by comparison with a membership that includes only Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Instead of expanding, the CSTO is shrinking, having lost Azerbaijan, Georgia and Uzbekistan over the course of its existence.

      And then there’s the Helsinki framework that holds East and West together in the tenuous OSCE. Neither Russia nor its military alliance was able to prevent the march of NATO eastward to include former Soviet republics. Neither NATO nor the OSCE was able to stop Russia from seizing Crimea, supporting a separatist movement in eastern Ukraine or orchestrating “frozen conflicts” in Georgia and Moldova.

      Presently, there are no arms control negotiations between East and West. China became Russia’s leading trade partner about a decade ago, and the United States and European countries have only fallen further behind since. Human rights and civil liberties are under threat in both the former Soviet Union and parts of the European Union.

      So, now do you understand what I mean by the breakdown of the European security order? The Cold War is back, and it threatens once again to go hot, if not tomorrow then perhaps sometime soon.

      So, yes, Ukrainian sovereignty must be defended in the face of potential Russian aggression. But the problem is much bigger. If we don’t address this bigger problem, then we’ll never really safeguard Ukraine, deal with Russia’s underlying concerns of encirclement or tackle the worrying militarization of Europe. What we need is Helsinki 2.0.

      The Origins of Helsinki 1.0

      In the summer of 1985, I was in Helsinki after a stint in Moscow studying Russian. I was walking down one of the streets in the Finnish capital when I came across a number of protesters holding signs.

      “Betrayal!” said one of them. “Appeasement!” said another. Other signs depicted a Russian bear pressing its claws into the then-Baltic republics of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

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      I’d happened on this band of mostly elderly protesters outside a building where dignitaries from around the world had gathered to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Helsinki Accords. At the time, I had only a vague understanding of the agreement, knowing only that it was a foundational text for East-West détente, an attempt to bridge the Iron Curtain.

      As I found out that day, not everyone was enthusiastic about the Helsinki Accords. The pact, signed in 1975 by the United States, Canada, the Soviet Union and all European countries except Albania, finally confirmed the post-war borders of Europe and the Soviet Union, which meant acknowledging that the Baltic states were not independent but instead under the Kremlin’s control. To legitimize its control over the Baltics in particular, a concession it had been trying to win for years, the Soviet Union was even willing to enter into an agreement mandating that it “respect human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief, for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion.”

      At the time, many human rights advocates were skeptical that the Soviet Union or its Eastern European satellites would do anything of the sort. After 1975, “Helsinki” groups popped up throughout the region — the Moscow Helsinki Group, Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia — and promptly discovered that the Communist governments had no intention of honoring their Helsinki commitments, at least as they pertained to human rights.

      Most analysts back then saw the recognition of borders as cold realpolitik and the human rights language as impossibly idealistic. History has proved otherwise. The borders of the Soviet Union had an expiration date of 15 years. And, ultimately, it would be human rights — rather than war or economic sanctions — that spelled the end of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. Change came in the late 1980s from ordinary people who exercised the freedom of thought enshrined in the Helsinki Accords to protest in the streets of Vilnius, Warsaw, Prague and Tirana. The decisions made in 1975 ensured that the transitions of 1989-91 would be largely peaceful.

      After the end of the Cold War, the Helsinki Accords became institutionalized in the OSCE, and briefly, that promised to be the future of European security. After all, the collapse of the Soviet Union meant that NATO no longer had a reason for existence.

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      But institutions do not die easily. NATO devised new missions for itself, becoming involved in out-of-area operations in the Middle East, intervening in the Yugoslav wars and beginning in 1999 expanding eastward. The first Eastern European countries to join were the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, which technically brought the alliance to Russia’s very doorstep (since Poland borders the Russian territory of Kaliningrad). NATO expansion was precisely the wrong answer to the question of European security — my first contribution to Foreign Policy in Focus back in 1996 was a critique of expansion — but logic took a backseat to appetite.

      The OSCE, meanwhile, labored in the shadows. With its emphasis on non-military conflict resolution, it was ideally suited to the necessities of post-Cold War Europe. But it was an unwieldy organization, and the United States preferred the hegemonic power it wielded through NATO.

      This brings us to the current impasse. The OSCE has been at the forefront of negotiating an end to the war in eastern Ukraine and maintains a special monitoring mission to assess the ceasefire there. But NATO is mobilizing for war with Russia over Ukraine, while Moscow and Washington remain as far apart today as they were during the Cold War.

      The Helsinki Accords were the way to bridge the unbridgeable in 1975. What would Helsinki 2.0 look like today?

      Toward Helsinki 2.0

      The Helsinki Accords were built around a difficult compromise involving a trade-off on borders and human rights. A new Helsinki agreement needs a similar compromise. That compromise must be around the most important existential security threat facing Europe and indeed the world: climate change.

      As I argue in a new article in Newsweek, “In exchange for the West acknowledging Russian security concerns around its borders, Moscow could agree to engage with its OSCE partners on a new program to reduce carbon emissions and transition from fossil fuels. Helsinki 2.0 must be about cooperation, not just managing disagreements.”

      The Russian position on climate change is “evolving,” as politicians like to say. After years of ignoring the climate crisis — or simply seeing it as a good opportunity to access resources in the melting Arctic — the Putin administration change its tune last year, pledging to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060.

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      There’s obviously room for improvement in Russia’s climate policy — as there is in the United States and Europe. But that’s where Helsinki 2.0 can make a major contribution. The members of a newly energized OSCE can engage in technical cooperation on decarbonization, monitor country commitments to cut emissions, and apply new and stringent targets on a sector that has largely gotten a pass: the military. It can even push for the most effective decarbonization strategy around: demilitarization.

      What does Russia get out of the bargain? A version of what it got in 1975: reassurances around borders.

      Right now, everyone is focused on the question of NATO expansion as either an unnecessary irritant or a necessary provocation in American-Russian relations. That puts too much emphasis on NATO’s importance. In the long term, it’s necessary to reduce the centrality of NATO in European security calculations and to do so without bulking up all the militaries of European states and the EU. By all means, NATO should be going slow on admitting new members. More important, however, are negotiations as part of Helsinki 2.0 that reduce military exercises on both sides of Russia’s border, address both nuclear and conventional buildups, and accelerate efforts to resolve the “frozen conflicts” in Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova. Neither NATO nor the CSTO is suited to these tasks.

      As in 1975, not everyone will be satisfied with Helsinki 2.0. But that’s what makes a good agreement: a balanced mix of mutual satisfaction and dissatisfaction. More importantly, like its predecessor, Helsinki 2.0 offers civil society an opportunity to engage — through human rights groups, arms control advocates, and scientific and educational organizations. This might be the hardest pill for the Kremlin to swallow, given its hostile attitude toward civil society. But the prospect of securing its borders and marginalizing NATO might prove simply too irresistible for Vladimir Putin.

      The current European security order is broken. It can be fixed by war. Or it can be fixed by a new institutional commitment by all sides to negotiations within an updated framework. That’s the stark choice when the status quo cannot hold.

      *[This article was originally published by FPIF.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More